Garden Update: 4 months

I have finally planted some seed in the ground! Its just a small 5x3 plot-but its a start. I'm tired as hell from shoveling and raking all day to get the little plot together. I broke up and dug up that hard red clay we have here and had to break up a bunch of shale, limestone and rock too. Our yard backs up to a hilly ridge line and there is just a ridiculous amount of rock in the ground. I was just so tired of waiting to rent a tiller and I knew shoveling and working in that heat would do some much needed calorie burning so Red and I covered ourselves in bug spray and got out there and busted our humps.

I bought a bag of sand and two bags of garden soil and filled the trench with it and then we planted our seeds. I think in two weeks I will do the same thing to the area right next to this plot. Maybe by August I can have four of these little plots going and then Red and I can make homemade stepping stones to go in between. the plots.

I also have to add the timbers along the perimeter of the plots and probably wrap some fencing around it all to keep critters out.

Oh and yeah...in true Clumsy Cathee form I think I may have broken a bone in my hand while "hammering" those stakes into the ground. Nice.Very nice-and to be expected. I can't do anything physical without injuring myself. at least its my left hand and its not impeding everything I do.

We planted pumpkins, pole beans, onions, dill, cilantro, and sunflowers. Weird combo-but most of that is seed packets my mom sent me in the mail and then some old seeds I had laying around the house. Seed packets have expiration dates on them, but I'm not so sure I trust them. the cucmbers I planted below came from an old seed packet that had an expiration date of Oct 2006!

I also started some basil a few weeks ago and some cucumbers. They are in containers up on the deck. They are coming along nicely. It only took them about two days to sprout.

Cabbage worms tore up my brussel sprouts and broccoli-but they are making a comeback after I desperately reached for the sevin-dust to annihilate those greedy bastards. They almost obliterated my plants in one day. I have no idea where the things came from-but there was TONS of them.

The peppers are coming along nicely. I have at least 10-12 buds on each plant and there are at least 3-4 little peppers growing on each plant right now.


The beans and the peas...well-they bit the dust. The beans were looking nice until we got a big rainstorm one night and they sat in a water-logged swampy mess for about three days. The container they were in had no drainage and I was a bad gardener and didn't pay them any attention or bother to drain off any of the water for a couple of days. Oh well-lesson learned: proper drainage is important afterall!